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‘Adam’-Inspired Center for Child Help Planned : Saddleback Consultant to Head Orange County Facility for Dealing With Wide Range of Abuse

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Times Staff Writer

A national organization headed by John Walsh, whose 6-year-old son, Adam, was abducted and killed in Florida in 1981, has unveiled plans to open a resource center in Orange County to help abused children, a local volunteer said.

Susan Davidson, 41, of Saddleback Valley, who will be the center’s executive director, said it will establish programs to deal with “the whole spectrum of child abuse,” including medical and legal problems victims and their families may encounter.

The Orange County facility, scheduled to open Sept. 1, is the sixth sponsored by the Adam Walsh Foundation. The other centers are in Santa Barbara and in Florida, Texas and Ohio.

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Highly Publicized Case

Since that highly publicized kidnaping, the subject of a network television movie, John Walsh was been involved in setting up centers to help abducted and abused children and their parents.

Davidson, herself a victim of child abuse, has spent the last 17 years as a volunteer in efforts to help missing and abused children. In the last five years, she has been working as a volunteer legal consultant in child abuse cases.

“I am a survivor of child abuse. I’ve gone through the whole therapy,” she said.

Although the foundation has not chosen a site, it is raising money for the project. Davidson said the group needs $250,000 to open the office, pay three salaried employees and meet other expenses. The foundation hopes to raise $2 million during the next five years to keep the center on sound financial footing.

Davidson said the exact amount of money raised so far has not been determined, but that a golf tournament and other fund-raising projects next month should garner the money the group needs to start the center.

She also said the group would be willing to use an existing building if it could be converted to a resource center at minimum expense and time.

Davidson said the children’s resource center, which will be staffed by volunteer attorneys and therapists, will assist families in cases of incest, child molestation and physical abuse. Five therapists and four lawyers already have volunteered, Davidson said, adding that clients would be under no obligation to retain the lawyers in a court case.

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A research library also will be available to professionals and the public, she said, although the group has no materials so far.

Interview Room Planned

A special interview room will be set up to help abused children prepare for court appearances.

“We want to do this so that it won’t be a frightening and intimidating experience for the children,” Davidson said. Testifying in court or being questioned by police “should be an experience they will not dread,” she said.

An employee of Walt Disney Productions has volunteered to design the interview room, she said, and the GVC Video company will donate the equipment used in the sessions with the children.

To help find missing children and keep abreast of cases, Davidson said, equipment will be connected to centralized law enforcement computers containing the names of missing children nationwide.

24-Hour Hot Line

The center, which will serve San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties, will be open weekdays, and a 24-hour hot line will be established to handle emergencies and referrals. Abused children will not be housed at the center, she said.

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Orange County was selected because of its central location and the area’s ability to “attract families.”

Also, she said, “California seems to be a haven for abuse.” About 64,000 registered sex offenders live in the state.

“Figures for 1983-84 show that California had a 70% increase in reportings of child abuse” over the previous two years, she said. In Orange County, more than 11,500 cases of child abuse were reported in 1984.

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